So I began my journey to Honduras (my new home for the next 27 months) on June 22, 2010. I set forth on my new adventure with a solid 3 hrs of sleep under my belt and a hearty breakfast of cereal in my stomach. After arriving at National Airport at 4:30 am for my 6 am flight and going through all the necessary baggage checking measures, I bid farewell to my parents and passed through security (which was shockingly busy for 5 am on a Tuesday. I got to my gate with plenty of time and settled in to wait for the flight to begin boarding. Unfortunately right as they began the boarding process my name was said over the intercom, followed by a garbled message telling me to go somewhere and do something unintelligible. When I asked the agent at the gate he helpfully told me that he was not the one who had made the announcement, and thus it must have been one of three other places none of which he had a means of contacting… oh and that I had like ten minutes to figure out what it was a about and get on the plane. Luckily I then realized that my drivers licence was no longer in my pocket with my boarding pass and began running back to security. There I was informed that they had not been the ones who had made the announcement either but through persistently bothering them I was able to be directed to a cop who had a little stand near by preventing people from coming in the exit door, who they apparently have no coordination with. Thankfully he was in fact the person who had made the announcement and I was able to get my id and run to the plane right before they shut the gate. From there on out it was smooth sailing to Houston, and I even met some other PC volunteers in my layover in Chicago so was able to chat with them and share a cab from the airport to the hotel in Houston, where the PC was holding its staging event.
After an afternoon of protocol explanations and ice breakers I was treated to another 3 am wake up and a bus ride to the Houston airport. As a side note, if you have not been to Houston it is a city with no zoning laws, and thus a hot and humid expanse of urban sprawl (with an airport named after George Bush to boot). At 9 am Houston time we took off, leaving American soil behind for over 2 years. After a smooth flight, we got to experience a landing experience unique to Tegucigalpa airport. For those of you unfamiliar with this airport, it has one runway, which is just long enough to accommodate a modern jet, and is located in a city surrounded by mountains. Thus the landing involves an interesting decent pattern followed by a very abrupt landing. Luckily we had a very good pilot and we didn’t end up hitting any of the houses that line either side of the run way (like 20 feet off each wing). After landing we went through customs and were met at the gate by the PC Honduras staff and taken to our training facility in Zarabanda, in the mountains outside the capital.
